arts

REX THEATRE (Fortitude Valley) aka Town Theatre / Hoyts Rex / Rex Valley (1936-ca. 1974) Wickham Street (between Gipps and Brunswick streets). Although best remembered as a cinema, the Rex Theatre’s first lessee, Graham Mitchell, operated it as a vaudeville house for some 14 months. The building, situated on the northern side of Wickham Street, dated back to the late 1900s when it served as a warehouse. At the time of its purchase by E. Craft and A.J. Carter (Crafti’s Investments Pty Ltd), it was owned by Foy and Gibson. The basement was remodeled into a theatre, with the remainder of the building converted into three shops. The Rex was used for occasional live productions up until its closure. Sinbad the Sailor (featuring Peggy Ryan) was produced there in 1950, for example. Graham Mitchell’s Jesters opened the Rex on 9 May 1936. The feature artists were Nat Hanley, Syd Beck, and Len Rich. Source: ozvta.com/theatres-qld/2/ __________

Peggy Ryan worked hard for a living. She danced, she sang, she took her clothes off when required. She worked on stage and under canvas, entered competitions, opened dance schools, and directed. She helped out her father, an illusionist and character actor, and she was as versatile as all get out. And she was not, as one magazine put it rather brutally, A Star. In a human interest story in People in 1952, 26-year-old Peggy was described like this: “She is not a star; she never could be. Her stocks in trade are a warm, sometimes strident, voice, a pair of nimble feet, a stimulating smile, and a figure of considerable merit. Yet without her, and other backstagers like her, entertainment as we know it would collapse overnight. She is the indisputable unit of which a show is made, the foil, the prop, the silk-and-tinsel background against which the star gleams his brightest.” Source: www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/hoofer-soubrette-and-nudie-cutie-...

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